The present invention relates to an oil-pressure-supplied bearing apparatus which supports thrust loads acting on rotating shafts by means of oil pressure.
For example, it is essential for a vessel to have its propulsion shaft provided with a thrust bearing apparatus in order to support the thrust force generated by the screw propellers when the vessel moves ahead or astern. Since the vessel moves ahead or astern by overcoming the wake resistance, extremely heavy thrust loads act on the thrust bearing apparatus, and, since the direction of the rotation of the screw propellers is reversed when the vessel moves ahead and astern, the load is also inverted from thrust to taw and vice-versa.
If the bearing apparatus receiving reversible heavy loads were composed of a ball-and-roller bearing, the structure becomes complicated and bulky. Furthermore, since extremely heavy loads concentrate on the ball-androller bearing, noise increases significantly. In addition, there is a critical problem regarding the load-resistance capacity and durability. To solve the problems mentioned above, the U.S. Pat. No. 3,602,184 discloses a bearing system for use in vessels, which supports thrust loads by applying oil pressure without the use of the ball-and-roller bearing system. However, this prior art involves too complicated bearing structures for the support of thrust loads.